Wow, this is such an old thread! Brings back memories 
I found mention of agnosticism often being called barbarism here. I also found SD in dispute with another yoga practitioner, chiding him for “advertising a product”, apparently because he prefers a different meditation technique and advocates it as a way towards peace.
No, I think you need some context here. Ananda had been posting in several threads across the Yoga forum advertizing “Mahayoga” and his guru - making hyperbolic claims that it will instantly work and make you enlightened or whatever. This is not just called advertising, it is spamming. Nobody likes a spammer. So I was not chiding him, but calling him out.
I was feeling fairly queasy. Then I read TatTvamAsi. And want to weep.
May all beings be happy.
May all beings be at peace.
Except the non-Hindu barbaric retard swine.
Haha, I see you have uncovered the old religion and culture wars that took place on this forum! These wars went on for months, and funnily enough it was the most active period of the forum. It is interesting how controversy provokes more interest!
Here too you need context, as a lot happened before then and a lot happened after then. The religion and culture wars started when Indians on this board started to challenge claims being made by some Western members on this board that Yoga predated Hinduism, or is not Hinduism, or is is a common practice that belongs to all religion, to some that claimed that was a common practice of all ancient cultures all over the world - every link between Yoga and Hinduism was denied. Some even said claims like, “The West took Yoga from Hinduism, and improved it” As you may understand this upset many Indians Hindus posting on board. So we fought back!
This fighting went on for a very long time, in fact there were vicious and violent debates - the Religion forum was created as a place where we could discuss these contentious issues. Unfortunately, I eventually fell out with my fellow Indian Hindus - because while I was arguing the issue of history, philosophy and culture vis-a-vis the West, many of them Neitzsche et al were arguing nationalism and racial supremacy. I even started a thread “Hindutva” to make it clear I was not nationalist and disagreed with nationalism. This caused rifts to develop between me and my Indian Hindu peers, and eventually we became enemies - especially after my criticisms of India and Indian people today. Sarvamangala was the last Hindu on this forum standing and became my arch enemy, and ganged up on me with Asuri who ironically was banned for three months for an extremely racist slur against Hindus(Now, he is banned altogether for constant personal attacks)
I also started a thread a few months ago entitled, “Why we should be all be Globalists: Deny nationalism” where again I came to war with Sarva the last Indian nationalist Hindu standing. Thus I have made it clear I am not nationalistic.
Tattvamasi was particularly extreme and even the other Indian nationalists did not always agree with him.
Now, why Indian nationalism? Where there is smoke, there is fire. There is nationalism because of how Western civilization undermines India’s civilization, appropriates its knowledge and technology, stereotypes it and dismisses it from important discourses. The racisn against India was staggering in the West, even up until today where the situation has improved only just. India still is not given credit for a lot of its contributions and inventions. Winston Churchill said “I hate those Indians, they are a beastly people with a beastly religion”
The West has freely distorted Indian history, systematically tried to wipe out its cultural legacy - and no other civilisation has suffered it so badly than the Indians. This is because the West knows India had a sophisticated and advanced civilization that was ahead of the West for much of the history of the world, and that India beat the West to the enlightenment, to science, philosophy, mathematics, technology, and that the West itself was indebted to India(indirectly through the Indo-Aryans, for its mathematics and number system, to its philosophies) This was in stark contrast to the Eurocentric worldview of Europe of the “white mans burden” How can you civilize a civilization that is more civilized than you are? lol So they denigrated it instead - spread lies and exaggerations about its caste system; exaggerated the minor military conquests of the Greeks(although the Greeks actually lost the war, and turned back!) and lied that all Indian philosophy was just an imperfect copy of the Greeks. In fact they even said the “zero” was Greek, but were forced to admit it was finally Indian when they discovered actual artifacts mentioning it.
Indians have faced a lot of humilation, injustice and torture at the hands of the Europeans - this is why Indian nationalism was born, and from that the Indian Independence struggle .